About Me

Born in the late 60's, Chesy hails from a Welsh mining village with a long name and was pretty glad when he got the Hell out of there. He got into Rock/Metal in about 1980, thanks to a TISWAS related incident (Rainbow video for All Night Long) and thankfully has never looked back.
Chesy often sang solo in the school choir, but thanks to a puberty related incident his voice is now completely bolloxed, although in his own head Paul thinks he sounds like a blend of Coverdale and Dio (R.I.P).
He was brought up on the classics - Deep Purple, Rainbow, Thin Lizzy, Rush, Whitesnake and loved melodic rock and the Hair Bands of the 80's. (Nowadays, he has progressed a little and prefers a more technical and/or progressive metal - Dream Theater, Rush, Symphony X, Porcupine Tree, Pain Of Salvation, Spock's Beard. He hates Black and Death Metal (can't stand the grunting) but for some unknown reason loves the magnificent Opeth! He wont stop this blog until his beloved FM finally play the likes of the NEC as a headlining act!!!

Monday, 25 March 2013

It’s a great thing indeed that some
musicians/artistes still have it in their life blood to make Melodic
Rock/AOR/Westcoast or whatever you want to call it. Pierpaolo “Zorro11” Monti
is one such guy. Already a part of Shining Light and the first Lionville album,
hes now devised a rather nice concept called Charming Grace

The
pure AOR of the Charming
Grace project is
based on the idea of writing songs in the classic style of the 80s and
recording them as duets. Although to be fair it seems a bit strange ho hear 2
blokes singing a duet! To give the record its own identity, all songs are sung
by one main lead vocalist (Barbieri) while the featured duet partners are
picked individually for each tune because of their special musical talents. The
concept was developed by Pierpaolo "Zorro 11" Monti , (drums – Shining Line, Lionville) together
with Davide
"Dave Rox" Barbieri (lead vocals & keyboards – Wheels Of Fire) and Amos Monti (bass - Shining Line,
Lionville).

Most
of the songs for the album were written by Zorro together with Dave and they also picked two songs to record in
the Charming Grace style, Bon Jovi’s “Everybody’s Broken” and Belinda Carlisle’s Top “Leave A Light On”.

Over
the course of the months the Charming Grace guest
list became a very special round up of musicians as it includes artists which
haven't been in a recording studio for years or even decades. Prime example is David Forbes, whose unique vocal talent was
one of the major keys to turn Boulevard,
the Canadian band he fronted during the late 80s and early 90s, into the cult
act they are among AOR connoisseurs.

Other
very welcome guests on lead vocals celebrating a glorious return to the AOR and
Melodic Rock world are the Scandinavians Bente Smaavik (Perfect Crime, Blonde On
Blonde), Thomas Lassar (Crystal Blue), Henrik Launbjerg (Toys Of Joy) and Kimmo
Bloom (Urban Tale) and
from the States Moon
Calhoun (Michael Thompson Band), who is accompanied by his mate Jeff Paris on backing vocals. The new generation of Melodic Rock vocalists is represented by Nick Workman (Vega), Stefano
Lionetti (Lionville), Michele Luppi (Los Angeles), Josh Zighetti (Hungryheart) and Gui Oliver (Auras). In addition to Bente the female part of CHARMING GRACE is taken over by the husky
voiced Jesse Galante, an American born singer with
Italian roots and the wonderful newcomer Aurë.

As
you can see, Charming Grace is truly a who’s who of both the old and new guard
of Melodic Rock!

The
distinctive vocals of Nick Workman help kick off the project with ‘Everytime
You Touch My Heart’, and his vocals complement Barbieri’s perfectly. The chorus
is one of those AOR by numbers, instantly infectious and sing-able and has
Vega’s style running right through it.

Moon
Calhoun adds some spark (along with the one and only Jeff paris on BVs) to ‘The
Way You Feel Inside’ a more uptempo track with more polish than a killers
bathtub! Boulevards David Forbes steps up to the mic for ‘Shining Light’ no
doubt a contender for the actual Shining Light album?! It’s a nice and safe
song with some good guitar work from Mario Percudaniand is a decent track indeed.

All
the track so fart are pretty damn good, but theres a step up in quality for the
ADV sung “The Sound Of Your Heart” a small bloke with a huge setof pipes. GC introduce the first of 2 covers,
the first, one that few people other than Bon Jovi die hards will recognize
(lets face it BJ have been off the boil for some time now – I say this as a Bon
Jovi fan, well I was up until ‘Bounce’), in “Everybody’s Broken” more country
than rock, but is handled well here by Josh Zighetti. The other is the female
Bon Jovi, Belinda Calisle’s ‘Leave A light On’. Only available on the Euro
version, perhaps they should have prayed for a power cut in the studio. Its ok
I suppose, but I was never a fan of ‘The Carlisle” so I cant really appreciate
the gesture. I could think of much better female artist songs to make a decent
go of

‘Through
The Stars’ Sees the Monti’s reunited with Lionville colleague Stefano Lionetti
and has more of a present day AOR feel than the others on offer

Its
firmly got its feet planted in the 80s, and that’s both a good and bad thing.
Bad because its in the past and Id like bands to take a chance, but good
because some really recent songs came out of the AOR movement of this period,
and songs that I still turn to this day, and for that Zorro, Monti and Barbieri
have a record that they can be very proud of as it certainly ticks the right
melodic boxes in abundance

Saturday, 23 March 2013

A decent sized audience turns up again for
the latest FM show/tour. If most of them are like me, they are there to witness one
of Britain's finest EVER rock bands. I don’t say this lightly, but more of these
perennial and on fire rockers in a mo!

I thought that the gig was a sell out and
that FMs demographic had changed as there was a queue of a few hundred foppy
haired teens (mostly young girls), there to see XFactor failure Frankie
Co-codamol! Or so my lad tells me!

Also on the FM bill are younger statesmen of
melodic rock, and all round Def Leppard sound-alikes, the hugely talented Vega,
and the 80s prog faves, It Bites.

Vega (up first) both look and sound the
part of the future of British AOR and they are ready to take on the Americans
(hopefully) at their own game. These guyse don’t have an axe to grind with the
dreaded 2nd album syndrome as new trace being aired tonight prove
that they have developed and matured into a mighty fine ‘single’ machine.
Highlights of the short set are predominately the ‘new’ ones, with ‘Not There
For You’, a sure fire single in the not too distant future, the Def Lep
influenced ‘What The Hell’ a song with a biographical tone and more than a
ringer for Leppard’s “..Sugar’, and the anthemic closer, 'Hands In The Air’. The
Martin boys certainly have a ear for a catchy number or 14, and in adding Night
By Night guitarist Ben Christo, filled out the Vega sound perfectly, and when all the lads
can sing, it doesn’t make for a better experience than this

It Bites are a bit different from the original
line up with only John Beck and Bob Dalton hanging on in there from the 80s,
with John Mitchell (Arena, Frost*) handling vocals and guitar. ‘Master King’
John Beck is the definite conductor of the band with all taking lead and
direction from him. If ever a band were there to please the audience, and more
importantly themselves, its It Bites. Not giving a rats arse to a smallish set,
they still throw in a typical prog number in 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley’ a
cool Spock's Beard type number. To be fair to they guys, they are not living on
past glories as 4 songs from the last 5 yrson offer all are very impressive. Again all members contribute to the
backing
vocals, with Beck looking as if he is slightly manic with a wild stare
and grin
on a couple of occasions, and looking a typical prog rocker and like a member of ‘Strange Fruit’ (go look it up if you don’t know what I
mean - I
state this as a tribute, not an insult!)

Onto the darlings of the night, Britains
finest rock band, the mighty FM. Don’t take my work for it, they call it
themselves as a part of the intro, and who am I to argue with such talent. FM
have a lead singer in Steve Overland who should be talked about in the same
sentences for 80s rockers and MILFY housewives as Michael Bolton, only Steve
has a much better looking barnet! He sounds a mix of Paul Rodgers/Sam Cook and
the aforementioned Bolton, all rolled into one great live package (no auto-tune
needed here folks). Couple this with long standing partners and FMs driving
rhythm machine (Messers Jupp and Goldsworthy) and it’s a case of light the blue
touch paper and stand well back

Jem Davis is not as ‘in front’ as 'Didge’
used to be, and that’s a good sign, just letting his playing and bvs taking
centre stage. And with young gungslinger Jim Kirkpartick, his playing has
injected a certain oomph into them, and lets face it, if you’ve seen FM these
past 2 yrs, then you’ve caught them in the best form of their lives. ‘Tough
Love’ kickstarts proceedings, before a clutch of oldies come to the fore, with
‘I Belong..’, ‘That Girl’, and ‘Hot Wired’ all hitting the mark. SO commented
that he gets stick for his set list choices from the fans, but FM could remove
10 of the songs played tonight (and for the remaining two nights of the tour) and
I think the everyone would still be very happy bunnies, such is the quality of
their back catalogue. FM still can write a damn infectious song or two, Only
Foolin, and the excellent Rockville track Crosstown Train bearing testament to
their talent.

There was no surprise as per Mondays Bingley
gig where Didge joined them on stage, we just had to do with the straight-talkin,
let the songs and performance do the business from UKs finest

Lets just hope 2014 brings the 25th
anniversary tour of the classic ‘Tough It Out’ and I would be one ecstatic FM
fan indeed. Long may they (all) continue

Saturday, 9 March 2013

Yay! Or should that be Hallelujah! My
favourite God botherer's are back with a new album. Now if there's one Christian
rock band you have to have in your collection, its Stryper. Yes they are seen
as a gimmick, but if they are, then it’s a bloody good one! They have written
some tripe, I don’t particularly care for the sugar coated ballads, but when
they let rip, Michael Sweet has one of the finest rock voices I've ever heard,
EVER!

Without a doubt, Stryper is one of the top Christian rock bands of all-time,
and certainly the most celebrated Christian metal band of all time. Comprised
of Michael Sweet (vocals/guitar), Oz Fox (guitar), Tim Gaines (bass), and
Robert Sweet (drums), Stryper has been rocking since 1983, and is responsible
for such '80s metal classic albums as 'Soldiers Under Command,' 'To Hell with
the Devil,' In God We Trust,' and such MTV hit singles/videos as "Calling
on You," "Free," and "Honestly." After a sabbatical for
much of the 1990's, Stryper returned strong in the early 21st century (Lazarus
effect). But it was not until their 2011 covers set, 'The Covering,' that the
aforementioned definitive Stryper was reinstated, as the band welcomed Gaines
back into the fold.

The sixteen track new album includes brand new recordings of fourteen Stryper
classics plus two brand new songs recorded for this celebrative (and it’s a truly)
‘Best Of’ release.

Covering songs from the first EP of the band “The Yellow and Black Attack”, the
follow up “Soldiers Under Command” and the following “To Hell With the Devil” along
with two brand new tracks, “Second Coming” allows the youngest generation of
fans of the band to become acquainted with the early band’s repertoire offering
some over the top classic performances only this time with 21st C
production techniques and a bit of welly and thunder thrown in. As the
originals sounded as if they had been recorded in 4AD.

The re-recordings are fabulous, they’ve been recorded today
as they were intended to, and probably for a fraction of the cost. In Michael
Sweet, Stryper have a vocalist with the voice of a God, a Rock God!

The heavier numbers are the ones that really stand out –
‘Loud And Clear, Soldiers Under Command; Makes Me Wanna Sing; The
Rock That Makes Me Roll and To Hell With The Devil’ all have a much added depth
and quality than before. Stryper haven’t messed around with the songs to suit
an older Michael Sweet, as he still hits all the notes without any fuss
whatsoever and that in itself is quite remarkable. The two new songs have more
of a classic rock feel to them, as the opening riff to ‘Bleeding From The
Inside Out’ reminds me of Rainbow’s 16th Century Greensleeves, and ‘Blackened’
is an up-tempo little affair.

Michael Sweet has high hopes for what lays in store for
Stryper. "We're really excited this record. The re-recorded songs are
sounding awesome! Better than the originals in many ways!! One word to describe
the record? Heavier. We're hooked up with some great people - we've got new
management, a great album, a great label. We just feel like everything is
coming together, and hopefully some big things are to follow."

So…don’t take my word for it, check out what these guys
thought of the Second Coming....

‘I could never part with it’, Moses

‘My wives loved it!’, Solomon

‘Great music for the Ark’s ipod’, Noah

‘It slayed me!’, Goliath

‘I couldn’t stop dancing’, Salome

I must add that I feel that the project has been at the behest of the head of Frontiers. Don't get me wrong, the reworked songs are decent, but I think Stryper would have been best coming to market with either a brand new set of songs (especially as the last album was a covers cd) or got the originals remastered with a handful of rare and unreleased tracks....Winter Wonderland anyone???

Well rock fans, Britain’s finest have been
up to it yet again, and, like a fine wine, the FM guys are getting better with
age. When most are content with living on past glories, FM are out to write a
new chapter for themselves with every single release.

They gained a fair bit of moolah from their
Pledge campaign, showing just how popular they are

They tried and tried for many a year to
crack the big time, and what with Metropolis and now Rockville they have an
album that just screams for it to be heard on the radio! It’s probably not as
heavy as Metropolis, but bugger me they haven’t half come up with an instantly
likeable, hummable and Goddamn infectious set of songs. The lads are probably
in their most prolific period since they formed back in the 80’s . Load the
album into the dreaded iTunes, and they genre displays ‘pop’! If anything it’s
a FM-rock radio friendly (with more than a hint of country rock thrown in for
good measure) set of songs that deserve to be played on this and the other side
of the Atlantic. Listen up America!

FM have tried over the years to take on the
Americans at their own game. That plan didn’t work out too well, but US’ loss
is the UKs gain. FM have a talent for polished, and attractive songs.

Opener “Tough Love” (mid-paced and
catchy!)and “Wake Up World” (soulful, and a shoe in for the upcoming live gigs)
both typify the 21st Century FM..less heavier, still hankering for
the 80s a little, but with a bit more soul (in both senses of the word). No more
so than ”Only Foolin’’ the first single that typifies the FM/Kirkpatrick groove.
“Crave” has ‘The Voice’ showing off his chops, and its got Radio 2 written all
over the thing! Yes R2 sounds shite to some young whippersnappers, but for me
this is the big time!!

Mr O goes all kinky on us by singing about
“My Love Beads!” Tinnitus is a horrible thing to contend with, I’m assured its
“My Love Bleeds”. Highlight of Rockville is the new classic, “Crosstown Train”,
a brooding number where JK truly lets rip. A heavier beast than the rest, its
up there with their finest and if I can recommend buying an album based on one
song alone, then “Crosstown Train” is it! Ill give you two reasons...the other being "Only Foolin'" another catchy Overland classic of the present and future.

All the others roll along in a similar
FM-vein WYSIWYG, powerful, catchy as Hell, and delivered with a muster that few
bands can match nowadays.

So, moving onto Rockville II.....

FM have been in prolific
writing form of late. In an age where fans like to have a number of formats, special
editions etc, the FM fan-base will be in their element with Rockville II.
‘High’ is another FM slant on the SO back catalogue, with “High’ getting the
treatment this time round. (I know The Ladder, not FM covered “Baby Blue”
before any smart arse kicks off!). “Bad Addiction” is a mix of ‘Aint Gonna Run’
and ‘Primitive Love’ and should have been a contender for the main event.

Folk music often concerns being far away
from where the singer resides. Steve Overland must have very itchy feet and a
desire for travel in its various forms with songs like ‘Crosstown Train;
Desolation Station; Runaway Train and Paradise Highway’, and continuing on the
travel theme with ‘Brother Take Me Home’!! If you could put two genres together it could be country rock, but the amalgamation isnt too good...."Crock!" or even "Cock"

So there you have it – a mighty fine main
event and a solid set of songs on Rockville II that any discerning FM fan will
lap up. Whilst it doesn’t break any musical barriers, FM are in very fine form
indeed.